Help on deciding on a MA.

I am not a native speaker, so please excuse the oddities of my posts. Thanks.

My questions for you -so far:

1)Wing Chun: From the SD viewpoint, what is better: To do WC or not to do anything at all?

2)BJJ: First Question: Are there many waist throws? Second question: In this style, do you always go to the ground? It makes much more sense to me to let your opponent fly to the ground while you stand up.

DO NOT do Wing chun. It blows hard. Totally worthless.
I've yet to study BJJ, and thus can't answer on the topic of throwing techniques (though I've come to the opinion that the majority of BJJ players use wrestling-like takedowns and trips rather than throws.) but I know that BJJ always goes to ground.
And going to ground makes more sense, since obtaining superior position and submitting the opponent is much more reliable than hoping one throw will knock them out.
If you're knee injury really is that bad, I'd recommend against striking arts.
Since it does sound like it really hinders you, my advice would be to get it seriously treated, surgery or whatnot. But that's just me.

Welcome to the boards.

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but really, if you've got serious knee concerns, and you still want to fight, there are worse choices than taking up good old boxing (or your somewhat annatrocity-esque kickboxing without kicking plan).

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Pauli: I have been to the doctor, and I have become very good at 'listening to my knee'. The thing is that for me some exercise is better than no exercise at all. I have to keep my legs strong and flexible, but no kicks and no waist throws for me.

My plan is to have a go at BJJ and see if I can do it. I won't strain myself. As soon as I get the basics of BJJ I'll try to learn to throw some good punches.

By the way, what has Annatrocity have to do with my loony idea of no-kicks-kickboxing? :)

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If you are seriouly interested in self defense, but have a nagging injury, learn how to use a knife and a gun.

Speaking as a guy who's needed knee surgery for a few years now I think BJJ is less dangerous than most hard sparring stand up arts. Provided you find a dojo that has experienced guys who are not trying to take everyone's head (or knee) off everytime they step out onto the mat. IME most legitimate BJJ places do not do this.

Amp's second statement in the above quote is the best advice so far in this thread.

Shut the hell up and train.

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Speaking as a guy who's needed knee surgery for a few years now I think BJJ is less dangerous than most hard sparring stand up arts. Provided you find a dojo that has experienced guys who are not trying to take everyone's head (or knee) off everytime they step out onto the mat. IME most legitimate BJJ places do not do this.

You are probably right...and since I've only been doing formally training BJJ for a month or so now...I will certainly defer to your experience.

Though I figured given the amount of time spent on the knees (in one way or another), it seemed like it would be tough w/ that kind of injury.

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BJJ all the way. Why? My instructor got into BJJ after blowing out his knee doing Judo. He usually spars off the knees (no takedowns) or starts in an inferior position on the ground. Ground grappling is much easier on the knees than standup grappling, he did one tourney where he went hard grappling standing and blew out his knee again(go figure).

If you just want to do a MA for fun and fitness and not self defence without doing something totally ineffective, I would think that BJJ starting from the knees/ground would be the perfect match. You are still learning something you can actually use, although there will be holes in your game obviously, without unduely jeapordizing your knee.

BJJ plus some boxing is probably the best bet, although boxers can and do blow out their knees too once in a while, proper boxing footwork, pivoting and twisting can be hard on the legs.

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personally I'd be a little worried about doing boxing with a jacked knee. Sure, you don't have the kicks to worry about, but there IS a lot of legwork involved. There've been times when I've had a tweaked knee and just working my boxing footwork put too much lateral stress on the knee joint. Of course try it out and see how your knee feels, but don't go in there thinking it'll be something that puts no stress on the knee.